词汇学(11)Sense Relation Ⅱ Homonymy

词汇学(11)Sense Relation Ⅱ Homonymy

Contents

Types of Homonymy

Perfect Homonymys

Perfect homonymys, also known as absolute homonymys, are words identical both in sound and spelling.
E.g.

bank nthe edge of the river
bank nan establishment for money business
bear na large heavy animal
bear vto put up with
date na kind of fruit
date na boy or a girl friend

Homographs

Homographs are words identical only in spelling but different in sound and meaning.
E.g.

bow/bau/bending the head as a greeting
bow/bəu/the device used for shooting arrows
sow/səu/to scatter seeds
sow/sau/female adult pig

Homophones

Homophones are words identical only in sound but different in spelling and meaning.
E.g. write, right, rite

Origins of Homonymys

Changes in Sound and Spelling

Some homonymys are native by origin, derived from different earlier forms in Old English. The change in sound and spelling gradually made them identical in Modern English.
E.g.

earan organ with which to listen and hearfrom eare (OE)
earthe grain-bearing spike of com or wheatfrom aer (OE)
longnot shortfrom lang (OE)
longto want very muchfrom langian (OE)

Borrowings

As a resultof heavy borrowing from other languages, many words of foreign origin concide in sound and/or spelling with those of native originor with those of other foreign origin.
E.g.

faira marketborrowed from feria (Latin)
fairpettyfrom faeger (OE)
balla round object to play withfrom beallu (OE)
balla dance partyborrowed from baller (OE)

Shortenings

Many shortened forms of words happened to be identical with other words in spelling or sound.
E.g. ad for advertisement, rock for rock and roll

Difference of Homonyms from polysemants

Perfect homonyms and polysemants are fully identical with the difference to spelling and pronounciation, as both have the same orthographical form but different meanings. This creates the problems of diffrenciation. The fundumental diffrence between homonyms and polysemants lies in the fact that the former refers to different lexemes which has two or more distinguishable meanings. One important criterion by which to diffrentiate them is "etymology", that is to say homonyms are descedants of diffrent sources whereas a polysemant is a word of the same sourece which ahs acquired diffrent meanings in the couse of development.

The second pricipal consideration is "semantic relatedness". The different meanings of a single polysemous lexeme are related and can be tracked back to one central meaning. On the other hand, meanings of diffrent homonyms have nothing to do with one another. In dictionaries, a polysemant has its meaning all listed under one headword in many cases whereas homonyms are listed as separate entries.

Retoric Features of Homonyms

As homonyms are identical in sound and spelling, particularly homophones, they are often employed to create puns for desired effect, say, humor, sacasm or ridicule.
Consider the following scene that happened in a restraurant.

"You're not eating your fish. Anything wrong with it?"
"Long time no sea."

 

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